Access Denied
by TealEmperor
Summary: S1E7 in novella form. The portal-hopping adventures of Jess, Ivor, Lukas, and Petra take them to a scary new world where all the people and animals are under the mind-control of a well-intentioned but extremely misguided intelligent computer. Can they work together with a mysterious stranger to save the world from the clutches of a rogue AI?
1. Chapter 1

**The vote is in, and it was in favor of Access Denied. I can see why that episode was so popular. Anyway, here it is, delivered in novella form. Like** _ **Order Up,**_ **this novella uses paraphrased dialogue, emphasized Lukesse moments, and other extras not found in the original episode. The Tealy Touch, as I like to call it ;3**

 **Uses Fem!Jesse variant 1, just like** _ **Order Up.**_ **Again, we'll call her Jess.**

 **I used PhatSteve7's playthrough and XCageGame's playthrough as references.**

 **Here thar be spoilers, of course.**

Jess liked to say that it was good for an adventure to start off with a bang, but she didn't mean it literally. She and her friends Petra, Lukas, and Ivor came blasting out of the fire world portal when an explosion went awry. The force of the blast didn't hurt them, but it did throw them right into the portal hallway. They all faceplanted on the cold quartz tiles. They had soot smeared on their faces, and the smell of smoke clung to them.

"Oh, wow," Jess stammered as she and the others staggered to their feet. "Now that was an adventure. A whole world made out of fire! Can you imagine?"

"My clothes are going to smell like smoke for weeks," Ivor complained, dusting himself off.

Jess glanced over at Lukas and spotted something startling. "Lukas, your bum is on fire!"

She didn't know what to do. When she hesitated, Lukas took the situation into his own hands.

"Ahh!" he yelped, plunking himself down on the floor. He scooted forward like a dog, whimpering the whole time. Well, that was one way to put out the flames. When he was sure that his bum wasn't on fire anymore, he sighed in relief and pulled out a book and quill. He thumbed over to a clean page and started scribbling.

"I'm going to call that one the Fire World," he said.

Petra rolled her eyes. "Genius! Never would have thought of that one."

She made a scoffing sound and turned away from the others. Jess, Lukas, and Ivor looked at her strangely. Jess was surprised by the unexpected rude behavior from Petra. What did Lukas do to her to warrant that?

"I'm...sorry?" Lukas faltered, putting away his book. "Is something wrong?"

"Yeah, what's up, Petra?" Jess asked. "What's bothering you?"

"What's bothering me?" Petra fumed. "I'll tell you what's bothering me. We're still stuck in this dang portal hallway! We've been going in and out of a bunch of stupid worlds, over and over again, trying to find our way home. Wrong portal after wrong portal! This is so useless!"

"Petra…" Ivor said firmly, trying to calm her down. "I understand that you're upset. We're all tired, so maybe we should stop for a break-"

Petra wasn't done with her rant. "Like just now! That _stupid_ fire world portal! Whose dumb idea was it to go there in the first place? What were they thinking? 'Golly, I wonder what's on da odeh side of dat portal? Look at da netherrack and fiyah! Dis is a safe place, what do yous guys think?' What a cobblestone brain."

Lukas looked away and pretended to be interested in the empty pages of his book. Going through the fire world portal had been his idea. Jess noticed his poorly-disguised hurt feelings. Maybe he was wondering if Petra really though he was stupid.

"Petra." Jess put her hands on her hips. "Chill out. I know you're upset, but we have to keep it together."

"Jess is right," said Ivor. "Infighting in the group will only make this mission harder."

"Mission?" Petra said scornfully. "You call it a mission, like we _chose_ to get lost in this dumb hallway. No. This is just the same stupid thing, over and over again. We're stuck in a rut and we'll never find our way home!"

"Well, we will never find our way home with that kind of attitude," Ivor said. "My goodness, child. We will survive. Do you want to sit down and rest for a few minutes?"

"No." Petra whirled away from the old man. "I wanna go home. I just want to know which of these portals goes home."

Ivor shrugged. "It would have been helpful if the Old Builders, or whoever it was who built this place, left some way of identifying these portals. Occasionally I worry that we've gone to the same world multiple times. Some of these portals look much too similar to each other."

"But we don't have directions, so we have to play it by ear," Jess said, but it was more to Petra than Ivor. "So there's some trial and error involved."

"Error, error, error, error, error!" Petra growled as she stormed away from the group.

"Hey!" Jess called after her. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm gonna find my way home if it kills me! Instead of just choosing random portals, I'll ask someone for directions. The _logical_ route. If only our _leadership_ would have thought of that first, maybe we wouldn't still be stuck here."

Jess's step faltered. Petra had been glaring right at Jess when she mentioned the 'leadership' of the group. So now Petra was blaming Jess for letting the group be stuck in the portal hallway for so long. She and the other two hurried after Petra before the feisty redhead could go too far off on her own.

"Now you hold on a minute," Jess said, but Petra ignored her. Petra had parked herself in front of a portal with a frame made of redstone crystals. The goo inside the portal was a bold red to match.

"Okay. This is what we've got." Petra whacked the side of the portal frame with her fist. "It's made of redstone. Where there's redstone, there's smart people. Maybe they can help us."

"Well, okay, but you're not going to be mean to them, are you?" Jess asked. "It's gonna be all right, Petra. We'll find our way home."

"Not with you making all the decisions," Petra retorted.

Jess blinked, taken aback. "Ah-wha?"

"What, are you saying that you're going to go in there by yourself if we don't go with you?" Lukas asked.

"What I'm saying that I'm sick of Jess getting to decide what we do all the time. Never any input from ol' Petra. We always do what Jess wants to do, and I'm getting really sick of it."

At first Jess was a bit angry to hear that. So _that's_ what all this was about? Petra was angsting about something as small as that? Well, she didn't need to lash out at Lukas and Ivor because of that. That was just plain uncalled for! Jess knew Petra wasn't used to being part of a group and wanted her independence, but she didn't need to act like a jerk to get it!

"It's always Jess this and Jess that. She gets to decide what to do...Every. Single. Time."

Lukas took a step back, as if Petra was going to pounce on him. "Woah."

Jess needed something to say. Hopefully she could get Miss Feistypants to calm down if she said the right stuff. Because the last thing they needed right now was a fight. One of the first things they needed was probably team naptime, but she wasn't about to suggest that right now.

"I don't know what to tell you, Peets," Jess said, shrugging. "Deciding what happens next is a leader thing, and I'm the leader. Someone needs to be in charge."

That was definitely the wrong thing to say. Even in the ruby glow of the portal, Jess could see Petra's face blush a hot, angry red.

"Oh yeah? Well, you won't be in charge of me anymore. Forget it!" Petra's hands curled up into fists. She looked two seconds away from starting a rumble.

"Hey, hey, hey, HEY!" Lukas said, interposing himself between his friends. "That's enough! The both of you need to calm down. I don't think Jess meant that. Did you mean that, Jess?"

He glanced over at her, expecting her answer. Jess bit her lip, trying to think of the right thing to say that would hopefully diffuse the argument. Her shoulders sagged.

"Maybe this is just a misunderstanding," Jess offered. "I said something, and maybe you took it the wrong way?"

"How else was I supposed to take it?" Petra crossed her arms. "'Cause that didn't sound like an apology to me."

Jess frowned. What was she supposed to be sorry about? Petra was the one who had lashed out at her friends and tried to guilt-trip Jess. But her thoughts were soon interrupted.

"Oh, forget it. I'm out." Petra abruptly jumped through the red portal and disappeared. It took a second for the other three to realize what just happened.

Lukas let out a small whistle. "That...didn't go the way I wanted it to."

"I feel sorry for whoever's on the other side of that portal," Jess said. "Geez. She might tear off someone's head for looking at her the wrong way."

"I don't think we should let her go off on her own," Ivor said. "It could mean trouble."

"You mean, Petra will be in trouble...or Petra will be the trouble?" Jess asked. "Come on. We'd better go."

She walked through the portal, with Lukas tagging behind and Ivor bringing up the back. Ivor was so distracted by thinking about Petra's angsting that he forgot to shout his catchphrase, "Adventure!"

* * *

Jess, Ivor, and Lukas hit the ground one by one, throwing sand and dust into the air. The fall hadn't been enough to injure them, but the impact still smarted. The three of them stumbled to their feet, dusted the sand off their clothes, and glanced around.

It was one of the most barren places Jess had ever seen. The land was nothing but kilometers of ruddy sand and looming mesas. The sun blazed in an empty blue sky. The air was thick, hot, and dusty. The only feature recognizable as man-made was the beige sand trail under their feet. It stretched out far in either direction, going off to who knows where.

Even though it was barren and hot, Jess still thought it was cool. She admired the deep orange sand and suntanned, oddly-shaped rocks. Some of the mesas even had bands of different colored stone running through their middles, built up over thousands of years. It was as if they were standing in Brother Nature's own sculpture gallery.

"Wow!" Jess exclaimed, gawking at it all. "A mesa biome. They're so rare back home! Look at that rock. It's shaped like a turtle!"

"So that's what it was called." Lukas dug a small book and a feather from his pocket. "I forgot what the name was."

Jess hadn't seen the book before. Where had it come from?

"Lukas, where did you get that book? I don't remember you bringing one along when we left."

"This?" Lukas asked, flicking the book shut. "It's just a book. I picked it up back at the White Pumpkin's place. It's got lots of blank pages to fill in, so I figured I should write about our Portal Hallway adventures in it."

"That's a good idea." She grinned at him, secretly thinking about what an adorable geek he was. "To record our adventures for posterity and stuff. People will want an accurate account once we get back home."

Lukas scanned the windswept, sandy plain. "Where do you think Petra went? This is a big biome, but it's an open area, so where would she go?"

"Not really sure." Jess shielded her eyes from the sun. "I hope she doesn't get lost, though. Do you think she's trying to look for those smart people she was talking about?"

"Once we find Petra, we ought to keep looking for any people here," Ivor chimed in. "Who knows? Perhaps their city is just over the hills. It's worth it to look for help here!"

Lukas bent down and traced his finger in the beige sand. "This looks like some kind of trail. Clearly man-made. Where do you think it goes?"

"We can follow it and find out." Ivor elbowed Lukas. "And then you can write about it in your little diary."

"It's not little," Lukas protested. "It's got 300 pages for me to fill. Plenty of room."

"Note how he didn't deny that it's a diary," Ivor said to Jess, but she wasn't really paying attention. She studied the path taken by the road. She couldn't tell whether right or left was preferred, until she spotted a battered wooden sign staked into the ground a couple meters away. A right-facing arrow was painted onto it, signaling that right was the, well, _right_ way to go.

"Roads mean civilization," Jess declared. "Let's be on our way so we can get there before nightfall."

"What about Petra?" Lukas asked. "Shouldn't we look for her first?"

"We'll likely see her on the way there. Petra isn't dumb. She wouldn't wander off into the desert for no reason, not when there's a road to follow instead."

"Very true," Ivor concurred. "Petra is a very streetwise young lady. Her sense of direction is quite keen."

Lukas nodded. "All right. Good point. Let's get a move on."

With nothing else to say for now, the trio turned and started down the road. They passed a vaguely skull-shaped mesa and a thicket of barrel cacti. Jess thought she heard a coyote howl in the distance, but it might have been her imagination. The road turned a bend. Jess spotted a person in blue crouching next to a rock outcropping. They looked like-

"Petra!" Jess ran over to her friend and knelt next to her on the ground. "Whatcha looking at?"

"Shh!" Petra hissed. "Stay down. And what are you doing here? I said not to follow me."

"Tough beans, sis," Jess countered. "No-one gets left behind in the New Order of the Stone!"

Petra rolled her eyes. "Not the best catchphrase I've ever heard."

"So what are you looking at, anyway?" Jess pressed.

Petra pointed at the valley beyond the outcropping. A single zombie staggered around on the sand. Now usually that would be nothing out of the ordinary, but this was plain, broad daylight. Zombies were supposed to burst into flames and die in sunlight, but this one wandered around, completely unaffected. The zombie's movements seemed even stiffer than normal. There seemed to be some odd, small object attached to the back of its head.

"Freaky, right?" Petra whispered.

"What's that gizmo on its head?" Jess inquired, hoping Petra had noticed it as well. "Some kind of mutation or growth?"

"No idea." Petra shrugged. "It's weird, though. Maybe it's part of this world's schtick? Zombies don't burn during the day?"

"Let's get up close so we can see it better," Jess suggested.

"I'm game for that." Petra stood up, shifted her shoulders around to loosen up her muscles, and got out her sword. She vaulted over the rock outcropping and rushed at the zombie. This would be a piece of cake! That zombie wouldn't know what hit it.

Petra lashed out with an impressive high kick and slashed her sword across the zombie's chest. She expected to get sprayed with dust, but instead, the zombie just spun around and growled, largely unhurt.

"What the hey?" Petra struck the monster again, but it still wouldn't go down. "Why won't this thing die?"

"Petra, are you okay?" Jess called as Petra continued to bash the zombie with her sword, to little effect.

"Actually, no! I could use some help!" Petra yelled back.

"Okay, I got this!" Jess whipped out her own sword and jumped over the rocks to come to Petra's aid. The zombie saw her coming and turned to attack her instead. It was just as slow and dumb as any other zombie, but Jess would be darned if it wasn't resilient. She stabbed the monster in its chest and throat, which would almost guarantee a quick kill otherwise, but it still wouldn't fall.

"That isn't normal," she said nervously.

It took almost eight more hits to finally down the monster. Jess drove her sword into the back of the creature's neck, killing it at last. It dissolved into dust and left behind a hard-earned iron ingot. Jess took the metal piece and gave it to Petra, who stuffed it in her pocket.

"Well, that was not what I anticipated," Jess said, wiping a bit of sweat off her forehead.

"I'd have hoped not," Ivor declared as he and Lukas walked up to the girls. "That was just one zombie! What was the problem?"

"That was more than 'just' a zombie," Petra said. "It was a mutant, supercharged zombie or something. It was way stronger than normal. Or maybe it's me? Do you think I'm losing my touch?"

"It's not you," Jess replied. "That was one heck of a zombie. Monsters must be stronger in this world."

Lukas crossed his arms. "So this world is full of stronger monsters?"

As if on cue, a whole horde of those stronger monsters approached them. The zombies were arranged into four perfect rows, marching in synchronization. Petra, Lukas, and Jess quickly drew their swords. The whole group backed away from the incoming zombies.

"We need to find a better way to deal with these things," Jess told her friends. "Hitting each one ten thousand times before it dies is not cutting it."

The zombies ended up cornering them by backing them up against a rock wall. But just before Jess was sure they'd tear her and her friends limb from limb, the zombies stopped short. Their arms flopped to their sides and their backs hunched over.

"That was sort of anticlimactic," Lukas commented.

"I'll say. What's going on?" Jess stared at the weird, non-reactive zombies. "Maybe they're peaceful? Some monsters don't like to attack humans?"

Lukas hesitantly prodded a zombie with the tip of his sword. The zombie made no reaction.

"Huh. Pacifist zombies. That's new." He lowered his weapon.

Now that the zombies had stopped moving and seemed to be in some kind of nonreactive state, Jess thought it would be a good time to see what the heck those things on the backs of their heads were. They were fist-sized metal boxes, with a large red light blinking on and off.

"It looks like it's made out of redstone," Lukas observed. "Maybe that's what makes the zombies so strong? It controls their behavior?"

"Astounding. I must get a closer look." Ivor squinted at the thingamabob on the back of a zombie's head. "For science!"

"I think it controls their behavior. Tells them when to stop and start."

"I'd better write it down." Lukas turned to a fresh page in his book. "Take some notes an-Ah!"

The zombies suddenly jerked upright and shook as if struck with a seizure. A screechy feedback noise blared from that...chip...on the back of their heads. It scratched at Jess's ears and seemed to reverb through her skull. She and her friends clamped their hands over their ears in a vain attempt to block it out.

"Augh! What's that awful noise?" Lukas cried out in distress.

"It's like it's attacking my brain!" Ivor pulled at his long greasy hair in agitation.

"Sounds like it's a sign to get the heck outta here!" Jess motioned frantically with her arm.

"I'm game." Lukas hurried over to her.

But before the group could split it, the zombies stopped spazzing out. They returned to their normal poses, turned about face, and started walking off in the direction they came. Jess watched them leave in confusion.

"Where are they going?" Ivor asked. "These are the most bizarre of zombies."

Lukas rubbed his chin, thinking deeply. "Uh, can I float a weird idea?"

"Sure," Jess said.

"I think they're trying to show us which way to go. Trying to lead us somewhere."

Ivor made a snorty sound. It sounded like a ridiculous proposition to him, but he didn't want to hurt Lukas's feelings.

"You're right, Lukas." Petra stood up a little straighter.

"Really?" His expression brightened.

"You're right that it's a weird idea. Crazy."

"Oh."

Jess shrugged. "It seems purposeful, though. And if you ask me, I'd rather follow the zombies than wander aimlessly in the desert. At least if we follow the zombies, we have some direction."

Ivor looked over at Petra. "She has a point."

"I just hope they're safe. You know, to follow and stuff." Lukas glanced nervously at the robot-like creatures. They were even more mindless than normal zombies.

"We'd best follow them at a slight distance," Ivor suggested. "That way, if something adverse happens, we can flee quickly."

Everyone else thought that was a swell idea, and so off they went, following a few paces behind the zombies. The desert heat continued to beat down on them as the sun blazed overhead. Not so distantly, a coyote howled, but it sounded...off, somehow. None of the animals seemed to make their proper noise here.

After a short while, the zombies turned a bend about a mesa. That revealed a staircase carved out of the stone in the mesa. The stairs spiraled up to the top of the rock shelf, and Jess could spot little clay huts built atop it. Civilization!

...Hopefully.

 **Hoo boy...that opening scene gave me such flashbacks to Portal Party.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Totally irrelevant piece of news: I got a new laptop over the weekend! Yay!**

 **Now on to the story. Thanks for reading and reviewing!**

"Well, here we are," Jess said as she, Petra, Lukas, and Ivor walked up the stairs to the top of the plateau. The hot desert wind blew back in their faces. It was dead silent in the village atop the plateau, the only noise being the wind as it howled through the canyons. A tumbleweed bounced across the stony ground.

"I don't see anyone," Petra said. "Where are all the people?"

"Interesting architecture," Lukas observed, looking at the small pueblo houses. "I don't see a lot of buildings based in sand and hardened clay back home. I always like to see how different cultures build their houses."

Jess heard scribbling sounds behind her. Lukas was taking notes in his diary. He was enchanted by the architecture, but Jess wasn't so impressed. She wanted to cross paths with _people_ who could help them, not what she was beginning to suspect was an abandoned town.

"Not much of an advanced civilization, is it, Petra?" she asked her friend.

"Oh, yeah?" Petra challenged. "Look at that! Redstone. I was right!"

She ran forwards a few paces and stopped to show a pile of large redstone crystals to her friend. They were heaped up against the wall of a clay hut. Petra gave Jess an "I told you so" smile.

"Good eye, Petra," Lukas said, walking over to investigate it. The pile of crystals appeared to only be there for storage. They weren't wired to anything.

"While we're on the subject of redstone," said Ivor, "I want to take a closer look at those devices on the backs of the zombies' heads. There is something else going on here."

"Ooh, yeah. Let me look at 'em, too."

"Go right ahead, blond guy...hmm. Here goes nothing." Ivor grabbed one of the devices and pulled with all his might. The zombie didn't struggle, but the device made an electric crackling sound. It held on fast. Some strong bond kept it fixed to the creature's skull.

"Hold on, Ivor," Jess interrupted. "What are you doing? You said you were going to _look_ at them."

"I said I would investigate. And part of this investigation involves me tearing this redstone doohickey off the zombie's head! It won't be that hard. They're...sleeping, I think. They won't even notice."

"Just don't wake it up," Lukas warned.

Jess's curiosity overrode her caution. The blinking redstone gadgets had caught her fancy, and she wondered what would happen if she pulled it off. Besides, it would make her feel better to triumph over the little device, after the other chipped zombie had made her think that she was inadequate.

"Let me try!" she begged, hopping up and down. "Please?"

"Oh." Ivor paused and motioned to the zombies. "I didn't realize you were interested. Be my guest. Don't let me stand in your way."

Jess stepped into the corral, rubbed her hands together, and grabbed the redstone chip in her hands. Pressing her foot against the small of the zombie's back for balance, she yanked with all her might to get the device off its head. The stubborn trinket stuck fast, the electricity crackling.

Suddenly the redstone doohickey spit out a charge of electricity that gave Jess a rather shocking experience. She yelped in pain and flopped on her back. Lukas was at her side in a second.

"Jess! Are you okay? What happened?" He grabbed her hand and helped her to her feet.

"Ugh...It zapped me or something. Ouch. Don't touch."

"Well, I suppose that's a lesson learned for all of us," Ivor commented, crossing his arms. "It would appear that we can't remove those chips. Not conventionally, at least. Ah, well. I'll consider this a minor setback."

Just then, they heard footsteps-human footsteps-on the sand about a bowshot away. They turned to see a person walking among the houses. He was a dark-skinned man in a red and gray jumpsuit. The guy didn't seem to notice Jess and her friends talking. His gait was stiff and a bit twitchy.

"Hello!" Jess called to him, waving her arm. "You there. Hi!"

Still no response from the lone stranger.

Ivor gave it a try, shouting, "Greetings, citizen!"

Again, no response. The guy walked away without giving a hint of regard towards them. Ivor tut-tutted and shrugged.

"Do you think he didn't hear us?" Jess inquired, scratching her head. "I thought we were shouting loudly enough."

"Maybe he's a little hard of hearing," Lukas suggested.

"Either that, or he's shy" Jess said, heading off the direction the stranger had gone. "I'll go talk to him directly and see what's up. Stay back here. If all four of us go at once, it might frighten him."

She got two "okays" from Lukas and Ivor, and Petra said, "Well, stay safe. He is a stranger, after all, and we don't really know what's up with this world."

"We don't want you to get hurt," Lukas agreed.

"Right." Jess went into the midst of the village, studying the sights. All of the houses had the same basic construction: small spaces, open doorways, decorative mats tacked to the walls. The mats had a tribal pattern of red and blue triangles on them; probably a local tradition. After a short bit of walking, Jess found the town sign.

"Welcome to Crown Mesa. Population: 1,063," it read in English and Spanish. Jess clicked her tongue against her teeth. It sure didn't look like a population of more than a thousand people. So far it was shaping up to look like a population of one, plus its four guests from another world. Jess hoped that maybe those 1,062 other people were hiding or out of town, because the idea of an empty, abandoned town was starting to creep her out. She went over to Ivor and Lukas to get their two cents on the situation.

"What do you guys think?"

Lukas glanced around. "I think something happened to this place and its people. An entire population doesn't make an exodus from a town for no reason. I hope there wasn't some apocalypse here."

"It would look more trashy here if there had been an apocalypse. See, the animals are still here." Ivor pointed at a pen of chickens nearby. Eerily, the birds had redstone chips stuck to the top of their heads. So even the passive animals were chipped here. That was disturbing. The chickens stood perfectly still, save for when they bent down and pecked at the ground in unison. It was almost as if something was controlling their movements.

"Small comfort," Jess muttered. "I'll tell you if I find anything."

Walking out further, Jess found Petra leaning against a house wall. She wore a stoic expression, and it was hard to read her body language. She was either still angry at Jess or just acting suave. If there was one thing Petre hated, it was losing her image.

"I didn't find anything, in case you were wondering," the redhead said. "Just giving my feet a break, is all."

Jess tried for a second chance at easing the friction between them. "Hey, Peets. About what happened in the Portal Hallway…"

"You're ready to apologize?" Petra crossed her arms. "I've been waiting."

Jess blinked, taken aback. Petra was the one who owed an apology! She was the one who had yelled at Jess and called her a bad leader. But still, Jess wasn't about to let the friendship get destroyed over one argument, so she decided to take the blame and hope the conflict would die down with it.

"Um...yeah! I am ready to apologize. You're right, Petra. I've been unfair lately. I'm sorry. I should listen to your ideas more often."

"Thanks." Petra nodded. "I appreciate that. Now let's get going. I hate sappy stuff."

"Right." Jess pointed off in the distance. "I need to catch that guy who wouldn't talk to us."

"Good luck."

Going a little further, Jess found an empty well (not a drop of water inside!) and some patches of parched, bare farmland. She tried not to think about the missing water, because it was starting to make her feel thirsty. Maybe a drought had hit the town, and that's why everyone had left? It seemed like a possibility, but that still didn't explain the redstone gizmos on the animals' heads.

Soon, she found the guy who wouldn't talk them. He had his nose in a wooden chest, rummaging through the items. Jess hadn't a clue what he was looking for. She made her footsteps loud on purpose, so he could tell that she was approaching, but he didn't react.

"Hello, sir," she greeted, using her clearest diction.

Nothing. He just kept rummaging.

"Sir? Excuse me, sir?" She said it louder this time. "Hello? Can you even hear me?"

No response, no reaction, no anything. He seemed to neither hear nor see her, even though she was right there. It was as if this guy was oblivious to everything except that which was directly in front of him.

"Hey, look," Jess said as he snapped the chest shut and stood up. "My friends and I are kind of lost and you'r-"

He abruptly turned his head to look at her, revealing bright, bloodred eyes. His irises glowed crimson. And as he robotically swiveled around to walk away, Jess saw the dreaded redstone chip on the back of his head.

Jess yelped, distraught, and stammered, "What the heck?"

"Jess!" Ivor, Lukas, and Petra ran over to her. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"We heard you...well, it wasn't really a scream. More like a yelp," Ivor said. "What happened? You were just going to talk to that guy."

"He's got one of those chips on his head!" a wide-eyed Jess chattered. "I don't know what that was. This is freaking me out, guys. Can we leave?"

"Not without a portal," Petra mumbled.

"Was he acting like one of the zombies or something?" Ivor was still confused.

"Yes!" Jess jabbed her finger at him. "Just like one of those zombies. He looked like it, too. Red eyes. Stiff movements. Nonreactive. It was as if he wasn't even human."

"I don't like what this place is shaping up to be." Lukas twiddled his thumbs nervously. "We should find a portal as soon as we can."

Jess heard something scrape against the sand behind her. She and Lukas did a double-take in time to see a human figure slide across the sand and scramble up the steps of a house. They were moving too quickly, too dynamically, and too purposefully to be one of the chipped people.

"Did you see that?" Lukas whispered. "There are more people here, after all."

"And I'm pretty sure that one might have some answers." Jess ran towards the house the stranger had disappeared into. "Come on."

The group hustled up the stairs and into the house as quietly as they could. Luckily, the person was too invested in rifling through a storage trunk to hear them sneaking up. They wore a yellow overcoat and a brown hood, and they lacked one of the redstone chips on their head.

The person was a woman, because she had a clearly female voice as she talked to herself. "Oh, yes. Hit the jackpot right here. Ha-ha-ha. Perfect."

She was digging unused redstone chips out of the trunk, and doing so quite gleefully, which was a little disconcerting. What did she want them for? Jess crept up behind her, watching the lady gather an armful of the chips, and spoke up to get her attention.

"Hello? What are you doing?"

The woman spun around and caught sight of the armored people who had ambushed her. She yelped in fright, dropping the chips on the floor.

"Oh, no!" she gasped. "Oh, no. PAMA learned to use armored people for hunting me down!"

"Huh?" Jess squinted. "Who's PAMA?"

"I'm not falling for that trick." The strange, elderly woman snapped her fingers in defiance. "Don't feign dumb, you despotic little-wait a minute."

The woman, who had dark skin and frizzy white hair, approached Jess with an analyzing squint. Jess stepped back cautiously, wondering if this lady was a few bricks shy of a complete wall.

"Hold on," the woman continued. "Eyes aren't red. Don't seem to have a chip on your head. Eyes not red? You're unchipped!"

"Erm...yes," Jess responded.

"Thank goodness!" Petra interjected.

"That isn't possible. I thought PAMA took everyone."

"Don't think I'm crazy when I say this, but we're not from this world. We came here through a portal." Jess hoped that the woman would believe her.

Surprisingly, she believed them. "A portal? A _real_ portal?"

Jess nodded.

"Oh, wow. Okay. Okay, um...give me a minute; this is a bit much to take in at once. Been alone for a while. Okay. Um...there's something I need to tell you."

"Don't hold back!" Ivor called over his shoulder as he pulled a chip out of another chest. "We need all the information we can acquire regarding this place."

"The citizens," the woman said. "The people of Crown Mesa? You've met at least one, right?"

"Yes, but he didn't seem very human at all."

"Oh, dear! Please don't say that. I know this all seems confusing, but I promise, they're good people. They just...they need my help right now. If you encounter more of them, please don't hurt them, okay? They're my friends, and I promise, they don't really mean any harm. They just can't help themselves right now."

She fell silent for a second, then gasped in surprise. She wrung her hands and glanced around nervously.

"What's wrong?" Jess asked.

"Man, oh, man...I'm sorry...I have to go! I've wasted too much time."

Before Jess could respond to her, Lukas spoke up. He pointed outside the window.

"Jess, we've got company…"

A foursome of people were walking towards the house. The guy that Jess had attempted to talk to earlier led the pack, with three other people she didn't recognize following in his wake. They marched in a perfect line, their movements stiff and their steps synchronized. It was as if they were robots on a string.

"That's not something to be scared of," Jess said breezily, watching them walk to the house. "There are four them and five of us...wait."

No, there weren't five of "us." The fifth one ran away. The strange, neurotic woman had scurried off, leaving Jess and her friends to fend for themselves. Well. So much for making a new friend.

"Well, this could be problematic." Petra backed away from the door as the four chipped people forced their way into the house. She reached for her sword, not knowing if they were hostile or friendly (and hostile was more likely.) The chips on the people's heads made a loud feedback sound and lots of beeping noises. They advanced on Jesse and her friends, forcing them to back up against the wall. Unfortunately, the friends were being crowded against the one wall that didn't have a gaping window in it.

"Friend or foe?" Ivor wondered aloud.

"I'm guessing foe," Petra chimed in. "They don't look happy."

"They don't look anything." Lukas sounded frantic. "What should we do? I don't want to hurt anyone, but if they want to fight…"

"Uh, try to blend in," Jess said quickly. "Maybe they won't notice. Look vacant."

She dropped her hands to her sides and put on the best blank expression she could muster. Lukas, Ivor, and Petra followed suit. The chipped people kept advancing.

"Make the sound they do," Jess whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee," Lukas said, but it wasn't working. The intruders were not falling for that trick. They stopped in front of Jess and her friends, seriously crowding the group's space. Then they stood still, just glaring with their freaky sanguine eyes. They were so close that Jess could feel the warmth of their breath on her face.

A woman with a big nose and hair dyed purple glared at Jess.

"Hi," Jess said awkwardly. "Nice day today, huh?"

"This is not your place of origin," the people said, in flawless unison. Their voices sounded rough and robotic. They did not have natural human voices, and it sent a chill down Jess's back.

"You must be mistaken," she stammered with a fake smile. "Of course we're here! I've been here my whole life and so have my friends. Perhaps there's been a little mixup?"

"Your response is untrue. PAMA knows it to be a falsehood. PAMA knows everything about this world."

Who in the dang world was this Pa-Ma character everyone kept mentioning? The king of the region? A god in the local folklore? Everyone kept mentioning him/her/it, but no-one was giving any clues as to the true identity of this Pa-Ma. Jess was just about to ask and finally get an answer to her question when the creepy chipped people spoke up again.

"PAMA has made a decision. PAMA requests audience with you. There are many questions you will have to answer about this. You must come with us."

A woman with blonde hair in an ugly updo grabbed Petra's arm. Naturally, the redhead retaliated.

"Like heck we are! Let go!" Petra lashed out with her free arm and struck the woman across the face. The woman's head jerked to the side; she held the pose for a second before slowly swiveling it back to glare at Petra. Jess felt a drop in her gut, realizing that they were _really_ in trouble now.

"It is not useful to resist," the four chipped people said, crowding around Jess and her friends. "You will come to PAMA. That is not a request. It is an order. Do not make PAMA resort to bringing you by force."

"Don't even consider it, Jess!" Petra hissed. "We don't take orders from these...whatever the heck these things are. We need to scram. ASAP!"

"There will be no ASAP," the chipped people retorted. "Only PAMA."

"So sorry to duck out, but we've got to go," Jess said, grinning fearfully.

"Out of time! Late for an important event," Ivor stammered.

"Look at the time!" Lukas squeaked. "Is it so late already?"

No luck. The chipped people suddenly lunged forward and started grabbing Jess and her friends by the arms. There was no changing their mind. Jess battled to escape the grip of the woman with the ugly hair. She was short and skinny, but for some reason, her grip was padlock tight. It took a lot of effort for Jess to wrench herself free. She broke away from the woman's hold and made a dash for freedom. She didn't get to go far.

Her getaway was promptly cut short by one of the guys standing in her way. It was the man from earlier. He glared at Jess and took a fight stance. She wasn't able to halt quickly enough to defend herself. The guy punched Jess in the face hard enough to knock her out. She fell back and hit the ground, her head bouncing against the stone floor. Her vision blurred, then rapidly faded to black. She only heard one thing as she slipped out of consciousness:

"YOU WILL BE MADE USEFUL."


	3. Chapter 3

When she drifted back into consciousness, Jess found herself lying prone on quartz tiling. Dazed and confused, she stumbled to her feet.

"What happened? Where am I?" she demanded, but she didn't know who she was asking.

Ivor came up behind her and patted her on the shoulder. "You took a punch to the face and went down. Right out cold. I had to carry you over here. I didn't have a choice. That was where _they_ made us go."

The weird, mind-controlled people stood in a perfect line behind them, vacantly staring. The one who had punched Jess had bloody knuckles on his hand. Despite their inaction, Petra and Lukas didn't dare try to make a break for it. Instead, all four of them gazed warily at what they had been placed before: a massive pane of green glass. It looked like a gigantic screen. Some smoke seeped out of the edges of the screen as the enormous machine it was connected to powered up. A crude cartoon face appeared on the screen-nothing more than two beady eyes and a mouth. At first the face's expression was blank, but then it shifted into a smile.

"What the...What is that... _thing_?" Jess stammered. She'd never seen a machine do that before.

"Is it friendly?" Ivor inquired, tapping his fingers together.

"It's smiling…" Lukas observed. "Or at least I think so."

"Maybe it's friendly," Jess said. "It has a cute face."

"Cute in a massively, hugely, mega-intimidating way," Petra said. "Brr. I never liked huge redstone machines much."

They were about to get their answer, because the machine spoke. It (he, maybe?) had an electronic, clearly synthesized voice, but his tone was clear enough to be understood. The face on the screen didn't animate, but it did flip between different expressions to show emotion.

"Good morning, civilians," he greeted them. "I do apologize for the violent beginning of this visit. I should have instructed your friends to be more gentle with you. Unnecessary violence is not useful."

"Uh, hi," Jess said. "Who are you?"

"My name is PAMA," said the machine. "I am a computer. A thinking machine, if you will. I hope that we can be friends. You four can assist me in my job. There is much work laid ahead of us, but perhaps it could be fun."

"I'm sorry, I'm not following." Jess held up her hand. "Do you mean that everything here in controlled by you? Everything connected to you?"

"Indeed it is." PAMA smiled proudly. "I have excelled in carrying out my job, which is to improve this world. More efficiency. More effectiveness. Everything must be useful."

Petra, Ivor, and Lukas exchanged concerned glances.

"With the help of redstone chips, I have connected all the nice people and all the sweet animals in this world to myself, and it has helped them to be useful. They are coordinated and synchronized. Very effective."

Jess looked down nervously at the small basin between the platform she stood on and PAMA. A group of humans and mobs were there, all of them chipped and standing still. Then they all tilted their heads up at Jess in synch and stared at her with those vapid red eyes. A shudder ran down her back.

"This world has been perfected by this interconnection. It has been brought to peak efficiency. There is no more wasted activity or pointless chatter. Crown Mesa is useful, and now that it is useful, it is perfect."

Jess was taken aback by that. "Hold on a minute there, PAMA. I saw Crown Mesa, and it is definitely not perfect. It's a ghost town! The well's all dried up, the people are nowhere to be seen, and it's as creepy as heck! That's not effective at all."

PAMA's smile flicked to a sad face. "Processing information."

His non sequitur reply made Jess and her friends confused. They moved in to whisper amongst themselves.

"What does 'processing information' mean?" Lukas asked.

"PAMA said he was a thinking machine," Ivor replied. "I guess it takes a machine longer to think than a human."

"I keep a database of all residents of this world," PAMA announced to the group. "I did not know if you were people whom I forgot to chip, so I consulted it. After all, I do not want to shirk in my duties. After consulting my database, I have determined that you are not from here."

"Uh-oh," Petra said. "He doesn't seem too happy about that."

"I request that you humor me and answer some questions," the computer said. "How did you come to be at Crown Mesa? Surely you could not have materialized out of thin air. Scientific experimentation has disproven the theory of spontaneous generation."

Jess didn't say anything right away.

"I would be delighted at the acquisition of such valuable information," PAMA continued, trying to win her over. "I always seek to expand my databases. I am a learning computer. I enjoy learning."

"Oh, don't bother hearing me talk," Jess replied, smiling nervously. "My life is a big snooze. I'd rather hear about you. A giant thinking machine? Fascinating! You must be a marvel of engineering, and you seem to be really smart. Why don't you tell me more about yourself?"

The ploy didn't work. PAMA didn't have an ego to exploit. Instead, he got upset.

"You answered my question with a question," the computer grumbled. "That is an evasionary tactic. An attempt at diversion. And it is quite _rude_. Your refusal to comply with my requests is making me sad. I fear that I may have to resort to alternative methods in order to gain that elusive information."

"Alternative methods?" Jess wondered aloud. "What does that mean-Hey!"

The four mind-controlled people had snuck up behind Jess and her friends, and now they lunged. They grabbed each person and wrenched his or her hands behind their back. Since the people were being controlled, their movements were more rough than they should have been, and it ended up hurting a lot.

"Ow!" Jess whined.

"Jess, help!" Lukas called out to Jess as one mind-controlled person started to lead him away.

"Lukas!" she cried after him. She struggled, but her captor's grip was padlock tight.

"I would have preferred a peaceful discussion," PAMA remarked, "but regrettably, you forced me to bring it to this."

"Bring it to _what_?" Jess whispered to herself, panicking. What was PAMA going to do to her friends?

PAMA made a conflicted expression. "I find this just as upsetting as you do. Honestly. But it is requisite."

"Let go of him now or you'll regret it, rustbucket!" Jess snapped at the computer.

"You will not sway my decision-making with insults," was the computer's snide response. "Do not force me to enjoy this."

The mind-controlled person dragging Lukas along stopped and turned the boy around, then held his hands behind his back.

"However, I can allow the blond one to go if you provide me with the information I require."

"Okay. Okay," Jess said. "That's fine. Just don't hurt him."

"As I have said before, this world has reached peak efficiency. However, complete usefulness of this world negates my own usefulness. What an unfortunate paradox. I had no more people I could help until you arrived. I want to help you and your friends become useful. Understanding that the both of us know your origin lies in another world, please tell me what that world is like."

Jess bit her lip, thinking. She had an opportunity to make up whatever she wanted-as long as it seemed authentic, it could throw this crazed computer off their tracks. She made up a quick story, then told it to PAMA:

"You'd hate our world. It's a dystopia. Everyone back home is starving, we're all crowded inside a dirty city with big walls around it, we don't have any rights...it's the pits, PAMA."

Ivor gave Jess a quizzical look. She mouthed to him, _Play along with me_.

"How dreadful!" PAMA remarked. "Totalitarianism is not a useful political system at all. Really, someone ought to make it a more effective world. Perhaps I could help with that. I could send some of these nice townspeople to your world as probes and work to make it a more useful society."

Had this been a different situation, Jess would have thought PAMA's hypocritical response was funny, but this was an emergency. Her scheme had backfired-badly. Now PAMA was all the more eager to spread his mind-control.

"If you entered this world, there must also be an exit. Where is it?"

Now Jess really panicked. She honestly did not know where an exit portal was in this scary world, if there even was one anyway. And it was obvious that PAMA would not take "no" for an answer. She resorted to bluffing.

"Forget it!" Jess snapped. "I'm not going to tell you where any exit portal is. No way! Crazy computer! I'm not helping you mind-control everyone else in the universe. Not. Happening!"

Enough was enough. PAMA's expression changed to a deep scowl. The erratic flickering on the screen showed that the computer was angered by her sassy response.

"You will regret this."

The mind-controlled person holding Lukas grabbed him by the arm again. A second person grabbed his other arm. Together they dragged him over to a sinister-looking metal machine. It was tall enough for a person to stand underneath. Redstone wiring stuck out of it, and there were two steel poles on either side of it.

"Let me go!" Lukas yelled, but of course they ignored him. They forced his back against the machine and locked his arms into restraints on the poles.

"Lukas!" Jess cried. "No!"

Quartz towers with redstone power cells rose out of the corners of the platform, preparing to power up whatever evil purpose that machine served. While Jess, Ivor, and Petra were held in custody and forced to watch, a device on a piston cranked back and slowly creaked to life. Lukas struggled and looked up in horror at it, but of course that could do nothing to stop it.

"We could have just talked about this," PAMA droned. "Now your friends have to _lose their minds_ just so I can have the information I need."

"No!" Jess yelled again.

"Jess!" Lukas cried to her, trying to get out some meaningful last words. "I lov-"

The piston slammed down, shoving a mold over his head. Jess saw Lukas's body jerk once and then stand stiff. She opened her mouth to scream, but all that came out was a hoarse squeak. The machine lifted the mold off Lukas's head. He was chipped. His pretty blue eyes had gone blood red, and now he greeted the world with a blank expression.

PAMA occupied himself reading the mind of his newly-chipped subject. "Name: Lukas. Sex: Male. Height: 1.94 meters. Weight: 65 kilograms. Light complexion. Blond hair. Blue eyes. May be displaying symptoms of depression or an anxiety disorder. Rather intelligent but very unsure of himself. Has a romantic interest in J-eh, never mind, that is not useful information. I can make him useful. Welcome, Lukas. Yay."

Lukas walked-no, Lukas under PAMA's control walked-away from the machine and stood next to Jess. Jess couldn't look him in the eye. Nor could she do anything as Petra was dragged over to the machine to be the next victim. The redhead's captors forced her up against the machine and put her wrists in the restraints, just like they had for Lukas. Petra struggled a great deal, but couldn't overcome them.

The mind-controlled people holding Jess and Ivor started to walk them over to the machine, struggle as they did. Jess had no choice but to watch as the mold slammed down on Petra's head and chipped her. PAMA beeped in delight at another mind-controlled subject and gleefully went to town listing her stats.

"Name: Petra. Sex: Female. Height: 2.05 meters. Weight: 65 kilograms. Light complexion. Red hair. Dark eyes. Neurotypical. Streetwise and confident. A capable fighter. Oh, yes. That is quite useful to me already, but I can make that even more useful. Welcome, Petra. Yay."

"Petra...Oh, no…" Jess moaned. The mind controlled people holding their arms forced them to go forward, walking over to the chipping machine. Jess and Ivor struggled, but couldn't escape their hold. If Jess didn't think of something to do, they'd be next to be chipped, and their mission would be kaput. She couldn't let the villain win!

"This situation is getting rather dire, don't you think?" Ivor asked Jess. "I don't want to be chattel of that psychotic computer! Please tell me you have an idea of what we could do."

"You are going to regret this, PAMA!" Jess snapped at the computer. "When I get my hands on you, I'm gonna tear you apart into wiring!"

PAMA said nothing, but pulled an angry face. He moved Lukas and Petra to grab Jess by the arms.

In a glitched, robotic voice, 'Petra' said, "Remember what you told Petra? I'm deciding what happens next. It's a leadership thing, like you said."

Jess winced. "Stupid computer! Leave their brains alone!"

Lukas and Petra dragged Jess over to the machine and forced her back up against it, squirm and writhe though she did. They locked her wrists into the restraints and held on to her arms. Jess's mind raced. She needed a way out, and fast.

"Oh, but their brains are full of such lovely information," the computer said dreamily. "The human mind is capable of retaining exponentially more information than any computer ever could. It is truly an underappreciated marvel of creation. It makes me envious."

Jess fell silent, her muscles tensing up.

"What splendid adventures you've had," PAMA said as he read through her friends' memories. "You fought a serial killer in a dark mansion. Traveled to a city in the clouds. Stood up heroically to a living storm…"

"Hmm," Jess said. "Ivor. Do you notice something?"

"PAMA seems distracted."

"Exactly. Every time he gets new information, PAMA seems to go off track. Get distracted. He has to process what he learned."

"Astute observation. Perhaps we could use that to our advantage. If we could get that computer distracted for long enough, we could escape."

"What if we told PAMA something that doesn't make sense at all? Like a problem that can't be solved."

"Ah!" Ivor's expression lit up. "That would be a paradox...a self-contradictory statement. Perfect, Jess. I bet that would work on PAMA."

"I beg your pardon?" PAMA overheard them. "What is this thing that you believe will work on me?"

Jess and Ivor shared a mischievous glance. "Oh, nothing."

"It is not nothing," the computer insisted. "Nothing does not sound like suspicious whispering!"

Jess smirked again. She had thought up a pretty good one just now. She blurted it out:

"PAMA! There are no absolute truths or eternal facts!"

PAMA's face flickered to a confused expression for a second. The loading dots appeared on his screen. When it flipped back to his face, PAMA spoke in a stunted voice as he tried to compute what Jess said.

"I recognize that statement. That is a Nietzsche quote. It is accepted as the basic philosophy of relativism. However...my processors are detecting a logical error. The phrase 'there are no truths' is an absolute truth statement...and if this is supposed to be a universal statement, then it must also apply indefinitely. But that contradicts the latter part of the statement, which claims that there are no eternal facts...but if there is no universal truth, a universal truth declaration cannot be made…"

"It's working!" Jess said to Ivor.

"Error! This is a self-contradictory statement! Does not-not-not-not compute! Is not logical!" A warning symbol flashed on PAMA's screen. "Not enough processing capacity. Diverting power to assess situation."

Lukas and Petra's grips on Jess's arms went limp and the restraints disengaged. She could pull free from them.

"Ah-ha-ha!" Ivor cheered. "It worked. Let's go."

"Yes, you had better go...right now! No time for celebrating!" The mysterious woman from before stood atop a house on the other side of the basin. "PAMA is a quick learner. Get out of there fast!"

As if to prove her point, PAMA got ahold of himself and said, "Relativist philosophy status...on hold. Recalibrating…Gasp! My creator!"

The woman crossed her arms and looked away as the computer made a cute, open-mouthed grin at her. Jess's eyes widened. That didn't make sense! How could this woman be running away from the computer she supposedly made?

"Have you agreed to harmonize with me yet?" PAMA asked her. "I would have done it already, but since you are my creator, I will not do that without your consent. Please merge with me. We can be useful together."

"Don't start with that, rustbucket!" she snapped. "We talked about this."

The woman vaulted off the roof and landed smoothly on the ground. She, apparently, had taught herself how to fall from a height without injuring herself, like Ivor had. She ran towards Ivor and Jess, beckoning for them to come with.

"Come on, you two! _¡Rápidamente!_ "

"Oh, looks like we have some backstory," Ivor observed.

"Please do not leave me, creator!" the computer begged as the woman started running away.

"And she gave us some pretty good advice." Jess replied. "Let's get the heck out of here!"

They hurried down the platform. Unfortunately, the only way out of the area was to run through the crowd of mind-controlled people. PAMA sent Petra and Lukas after them. This would be dicey.

Petra and Lukas leapt off the platform, landing heavily behind Jess. She dashed away, dodging an incoming group of mind controlled people. Luckily, PAMA didn't seem to think to make his chattel run instead of fast-walking in pursuit. Jess and Ivor ran through a cluster of houses. When the crazy purple-haired lady from before tried to corner Jess in a house, the girl ran out onto the roof, only to get dogged by two more mind-controlled people. A phalanx of more still advanced on them from below. Ivor gasped, worried that they weren't going to make it.

The woman with ugly blonde hair made a lunge at Jess through a hole in the roof, almost catching her off-guard. Jess grabbed the woman and, without really thinking about it, threw her into the phalanx. The lady took out about a third of the troops; they splayed on the ground. Jess winced and hoped she hadn't really injured any of them. It wasn't these people's fault that they were attacking her.

Jess and Ivor ran one way, only to get cut off by a wall of rocks, and the other way, only to get stopped by an incoming gaggle of chipped zombies. They were running out of places to run. They made one final dash at an open path, only to get stopped when-

"Oh snap! It's a cliff!"

The ground loomed sixty meters below. It was way too far to jump to safety. Taking that plunge would be certain death. They were trapped. Jess and Ivor turned around nervously, looking at the group of mind-controlled people slowly advancing on them. But to do nothing and get caught would be certain enslavement. Petra and Lukas pushed their way to the front, glaring at Jess with their blood-red eyes.

"It's over, Jess," PAMA said through Lukas. "Running away is not useful."

Jess bit her lip and tried to think of what to do. She considered the stuff she had in her pocket. Diamond sword? No, she didn't want to hurt anyone, least of all her friends, and there were so many people that trying to fight would be pointless. The enchanted flint and steel? No way was she going to burn anyone to death! The white pumpkin? What good could that possibly do? She pulled out the Eversource Crown, thinking that maybe its magic would do some good right now.

"Aha!" she chirped as she whipped it on, setting it at a jaunty angle on her head. She smirked.

Ivor stared, dumbfounded, at her. "Jess, are you daft? That's not going to help us!"

"Okay, okay, bad idea!" Jess stowed the crown away and got out a handful of Ender Pearls instead. "Luckily I still have some of these. Here."

"We just need to throw them in the right spot," Ivor said, gearing up to throw the pearl. "Dexterity, don't fail me now."

Jess and Ivor whipped the Ender Pearls at the ground below. Upon impact, they'd be teleported to safety. It would hurt a little, but not nearly as much as dying from fall damage would.

Just before Lukas and Petra could apprehend them, Jess and Ivor teleported as the Ender Pearls hit the ground. In a split second a puff of purple sparkles, they were lying on the bottom of the canyon, looking up at the rock walls around them. Lukas and Petra peered over the edge of the mesa, glaring in disappointment.

"Eyy! Not too shabby," said that strange woman whom PAMA claimed to be his creator. "Better stick close together, though. Let's get a move on."

She started running off, presumably to some kind of shelter. Ivor watched her with a wide smile.

"What a capable, amazing woman," Ivor said. It might have been Jess's imagination, but he sounded very...interested in her. The woman was still a stranger, but she seemed like their best hope right now…

They followed her into the desert.


	4. Chapter 4

**I know I haven't updated A Touch of Magic in a while, and I'm sorry about that. I'm trying to update the episode novellas more quickly, because I have a bunch of those to write.**

 **Also, don't forget about my poll. Vote for the next episode you want a novella of!**

Jess hoped that this stranger actually knew where she was leading the group. Right now, they were booking it into the desert. The sun was setting, painting the sky lavender and orange as it sank into the cradle of the distant mesas. But Jess and Ivor had no time to appreciate the beauty. The stranger was surprisingly spry for a woman her age. Jess had to work to keep up. She could hear Ivor huffing and puffing behind her.

PAMA had given up on sending the mind-controlled people after the runaways, switching to chipped animals instead. He chose zombies and coyotes to chase them down, knowing that those creatures would be able to track the escapees by scent. They sniffed around, trying to follow the trail, and the trio took on a zigzagged path to throw them off.

Suddenly the woman jumped into a ditch for shelter. Ivor didn't see it in time and tripped, faceplanting at the bottom. Jess ducked in, wondering what they were supposed to do next.

"Pfft-A warning would have been nice!" Ivor sat up, spitting sand.

"You two are some smart cookies to trick PAMA like that," said the woman. "Pulling a Nietzsche quandary on him like that? Cultured and clever, I like it. But that can't be the only move in your bag of tricks. We have to get off the grid."

"The what?" Jess blinked.

"The grid," the woman explained. "We're going to my lab; it's hidden out in this desert. I swiped some redstone chips from Crown Mesa earlier today, and I'm hoping that I can take them apart to see what makes them tick. Maybe then I can figure out how to get the blasted little doohickeys off people's heads."

"Okay. Okay," Jess said. "I think I follow."

"Is that your whole plan?" It was hard to tell if Ivor was being sarcastic or not. "We don't even know what your name is."

"I'm Harper," she said, "and come on, now. We don't have time for sass. You want to save your friends, right?"

They heard approaching moans and yips. Jess saw a coyote scamper across the sand, leading on a duo of zombies. And there would definitely be more where those came from.

"Let's split up," Harper suggested, even though splitting up the group is usually a really bad idea. "I'll handle the mutts and the mutton. You two, head off to the lab."

"What lab? All I see here is sand, rocks, and cacti!"

"Not much of a secret lab if it's out in the open, is it?" Harper retorted. "Just scamper off thataway, and look for the difference. I'll catch up with you soon."

Before Jess could complain that the instruction didn't make any sense at all, Harper jumped out of the ditch and dashed away in the other direction. Jess and Ivor didn't really have a choice but to run where she had directed them.

Off in the distance loomed a tall, twisted rock structure. It was a landmark if Jess had ever saw one.

"She's cryptic...a very intriguing woman," Ivor remarked as he and Jess raced to their destination.

"I prefer direct," Jess muttered, "especially in emergencies! I want facts, not riddles."

Ivor wasn't listening. "And her name...Harper. It sounds so melodious."

"What do you mean, her name is melodious?" Jess glanced over at him. "Do you li-"

"Is that a painting in the middle of the desert?" Ivor screeched to a stop and pointed.

And it was, indeed, an oil painting in the midst of the sand and rock. Someone had painted a nice desert landscape and put it here. But why? Why put a well-crafted painting in the desert of all places, to be beaten by the weather and seen by no-one? Jess was no art critic, but surely that was a waste of talent!

"Well, I'll be!" Ivor exclaimed. "The painting is a copy of the landscape behind it. What could that mean?"

Jess thought back for a second. "Harper said something about looking for the difference. Could she mean…"

"Perhaps this isn't a perfect copy, then."

"I'm going to look for a diff between the painting and the real thing."

"You'd better make it fast. Elsewise, the animals will catch up to us."

The pressure was on! Jess glanced quickly between the painting and the landscape behind it. It showed a small curve of rock with cacti and tumbleweeds dotting the ground before it. Something seemed off about the real scene versus the painting. Jess couldn't shake the feeling that some minute detail was missing from the latter…

"Hurry, Jess. We haven't much time." Ivor glanced over his shoulder. Two coyotes and three zombies trotted into sight. Ivor and Jess had half a minute, at best, before the critters spotted them and started pursuit.

"I think I've got it!" Jess declared. "Over there-that cactus with all the tumbleweeds stuck to it. It isn't in the painting!"

"Oh, no!" Ivor shouted. The coyotes and zombies had spotted them and made chase. He and Jess made a break for the tumbleweed-adorned cactus, really hoping and praying that Jess had made the right call.

"A trapdoor?" Jess whipped open the wooden hatch that the cactus had been hiding. Inside was a shallow sand pit with a rusty lever inside. Jess tugged on it to throw it, hoping that it was the answer to their problem.

And it was. Several meters away, some hidden mechanisms shifted and pried open a giant hatch in the ground. The sand over the top of it collapsed and poured in, revealing the entrance to what was probably Harper's laboratory.

"I knew she wouldn't disappoint me!" Ivor boasted. "What an ingenious woman!"

Running up to the rim of the chasm, the two looked down. There were no stairs, and it was quite a hefty drop to the floor of the cavern. Jess gulped.

"How well can you come up with plans on the fly?" Ivor didn't seem impressed anymore.

"Um...Uh...There's water at the bottom of that pit." Jess pointed at a tank of water far below. "If we aim right, we should make it."

"That's far less sincere than I'd prefer it to be," Ivor said, "but I suppose that's the best we get for now, eh?"

"Yup. See you at the bottom." Jess took the plunge. In this universe, any fall was safe as long as one landed in sufficiently deep water. She tipped into a swan dive, feeling the wind rush around her and blow her hair off her shoulders. In seconds, she made a square, ten-point landing in the pool. She'd made it into the dimly-lit foyer of Harper's lab.

"Smooth!" she said to herself. Then she heard an old man yelling; Ivor had followed her suit. She scrambled out of the way just in time for him to make an ungraceful dive into the pool. Water sprayed everywhere.

"Whoof," Ivor wheezed as Jess helped him out of the water. "I haven't made a plunge like that in years! At least it's an efficient system, I guess."

Jess was about to respond when a zombie abruptly hit the ground behind them with a dull thump. The impact was so hard that the creature died on impact, poofing into dust. A second zombie soon followed. PAMA was trying to reach them, without success.

Ivor tut-tutted. "You would think that a thinking machine would think to not blindly throw creatures over a cusp to certain death."

Having ostensibly run out of zombies, PAMA tossed a coyote over the edge. But instead of falling to its doom, the canine got caught in a spiderweb net on the ground. It both cushioned the coyote and trapped it.

"Um…"

The coyote shook itself free as best as it could and started stalking towards Jess, growling.

"Aaaaand it looks like PAMA just learned how to fix the problem." Jess gulped. "Sorry about this, Mr. Coyote, but I have to do it."

She gave the coyote a kick in the side. The blow knocked the creature backwards; it tripped over the rim of the water pool and fell inside. Electricity and water were not friends. The coyote let out a pained howl as electricity coursed over its body. The redstone chip on its head broke off and sank to the bottom of the pool.

"Hello!" Jess exclaimed. "Did you see that?"

As soon as the chip was off, the coyote stopped growling and acting hostile. It whimpered and crawled out of the pool, tail between its legs. It actually seemed ashamed of itself.

"Aww," Jess cooed; she scratched coyote behind the ears. "It's okay."

"Curious, most curious," Ivor said. "When the chip comes in contact with water, it is disabled."

A wonderful realization swept over Jess. "Ivor! You know what this means? PAMA's control can be cut off!"

"Come again?"

"Petra and Lukas-I can save them!" She captured him in a bear hug. "Oh! This is great! Ha!"

Ivor stiffened up. "Erm...yes. Yes, that's excellent. But we had best be on our way before PAMA sends any more monsters."

"Right." Jess scanned the room. "Hey, there's a lever on that wall over there. Maybe that does something. Let me get it."

Not wanting to get stuck if a wall dropped down or something, Ivor hurried over to Jess as she grabbed the lever and gave it a flick. An alarm buzzed, and promptly a heavy wood barricade slid out of its compartment. It slammed down on the ground, sealing off the foyer. That left Ivor and Jess safe (hopefully safe, anyway) and alone in the corridor to Harper's lab.

"Gee, I hope we didn't just lock Harper out of her own lab," Jess fretted as they started to walk down the warmly-lit, echoey corridor. "That wouldn't be very courteous of us, would it?"

"I'm sure Harper will find an alternative entrance. She is a smart woman. Smart enough to make something usef-err, helpful in her lab. Blecch. That blasted computer has ruined the word 'useful' for me now."

"Same." Jess sighed. "I can't imagine what it must feel like to not be able to control your own mind."

"It is the stuff of nightmares, for certain. Now that Harper woman...she is a most intriguing person, isn't she? She created something gone terribly out of hand, just like me...the similarities are...astounding…"

Jess smirked. "Oh, so she's 'interesting,' eh, Ivor? What do you mean by that?"

"I, uh…" he stammered. "I-I just think that she's...what I mean to say is that…Stop smiling at me like that! I can empathize with her, that's what I'm saying!"

"Oh, you're saying more than that," Jess said under her breath. "Heh-heh."

"I can relate to her. I understand her situation," Ivor insisted. "And there really isn't anyth...uh...in any case I...Oh, never mind."

"Careful, you'd best not sputter too much," Harper's voice said from around the corner. "You could swallow your beard."

"Gah!" Ivor exclaimed. "How long were you standing there? Just so you're aware, I said nothing. Nothing!"

Harper didn't buy it, but she let it slide. "Hey, kiddo, your name's Jess, am I right?"

"Yes, ma'am," Jess replied. "And this is Ivor."

"It's a, uh, real pleasure to meet you," Ivor said, waving shyly to Harper. "Even if it is in adverse circumstances."

"And, golly I don't remember...what were the names of those two other kids who were with you? A tall girl and a blond guy?"

"Those are Petra and Lukas. They need our help." Jess wrung her hands. "You can do something to help us, right?"

"Well, heaven and earth below know you four in so much trouble. And I am too! PAMA's going to figure out where this place is sooner or later, and then he'll have chipped zombies beating down my door faster than you can say 'Jack Robinson.'"

"Who's Jack Robinson?"

"It's an expression, honey. Anyway, if you could be so kind, tell me why the heck you came here! This isn't exactly Safe Haven. Didn't you know there was a rogue AI bent on making everything usef-ugh! I can't even say that word anymore."

"We came here by accident," Jess said. "We're trying to find our way home."

"You're a long way from home, sweetie."

"I know. I just want to save my friends and get out of here. No offense."

"You've dug yourself into a deep hole. I hope we can claw our way back out. Look, I'm sorry for being jumpy earlier. You guys are the first people who've come to Crown Mesa in a long, long time, and...eh, social skills aren't as good as they used to be. Were never that good to begin with, heh. I'll do the best I can to help."

"That stupid Portal Hallway," Jess muttered, "We're probably going to be lost until the end of time."

"Portal Hallway?" Harper perked up. "Did you say Portal Hallway?"

"Erm, yes…do you know about it?"

"Do I know about it? I helped build the place!" Harper let out a laugh. "I remember laying all that stinkin' quartz, and not having the darn place lit well enough…"

"B-But if you did that, then that means…" Jess gasped and put her hand over her mouth. "That would make you an Old Builder!"

Harper made a face. "Ugh. That's what you people call us? Can't stand that name! It makes me sound like a living statue or something."

"If you're an Old Builder, doesn't that mean you can stop PAMA? I thought Old Builders were, like, the elite."

"They are," Harper replied, a bit too smugly. "But that's out of my ability right now, I'm afraid. PAMA is a powerful computer. He's too much for one little old lady to take on alone. Besides, even if we could destroy PAMA, we can't leave. There isn't an exit portal."

Both Ivor and Jess made surprised grunts.

"I destroyed it," Harper admitted. "Was it a knee-jerk thing to do? 'Course it was. I don't argue it wasn't. But it was what I did in the spur of the moment. I had to keep PAMA from infiltrating other worlds."

That made sense, but it was still distressing news. "Can't it be rebuilt?"

Harper scoffed. "Not as long as that blasted computer is keeping everyone mind-controlled. We take PAMA out of commission first. Then we address the portal problem. Sound fair?"

By this point, they stood in front of the doors to the lab. Harper paused and crossed her arms. Jess took advantage of the lull in the conversation to bring up another point.

"Back when we were running away from PAMA, he called you his creator." Jess tapped her foot on the floor. "What's the story with that?"

"Okay!" Harper said suddenly. "It's true, I built PAMA. But don't freak out on me. I had the best of intentions in mind."

"How is mind control a good intention?" Jess challenged.

"Don't be so hard on her, Jess," Ivor scolded.

"That wasn't the intended purpose." Harper shook her head. "Not for the humans, at least. Since time immemorial, one of humanity's biggest problems has been the monsters. Zombies, skeletons, creepers...all those varmints, y'know?"

"Right…" Jess wasn't sure where she was going with that.

"Well, what if, instead of having to fight and kill those creatures all the time, you could get them to work for you?" Harper shrugged.

"Monsters? Working for humans?"

"Mmm-hmm. A wild thought, I know, but science is all about asking questions and challenging the status quo. Anyway, that's the question I asked myself. So I started a project to make monsters usef-helpful to humans instead of trying to kill us all the time."

"What was the project, specifically?" Ivor inquired. He was captivated by every word coming out of Harper's mouth.

"So that was my goal-make the monsters productive. Tame them, subdue them, domesticate them somehow. I had my fair share of fantasies about my goals. I mean, picture it. Using spiders as a wall-climbing mount. Having zombies and skeletons mine in dangerous caverns for you. Take a creeper as a pack animal, to go where cows and donkeys can't. Tons of possibilities."

"That does sound cool!" Jess listened intently. "What does PAMA have to do with it, though?"

"I was just about to get to that," Harper continued. "Let's just say that my attempts to tame monsters manually didn't, um, go so hot. That plan blew up in my face-literally, when the creepers were involved. Since I couldn't get them on our side with the nice-cop route, I figured that the next try would be to control their brains. A bit of neurological meddling. So I designed a redstone chip to fuse to an animal's head, and then built a computer to manage the chips. Thus, PAMA was born."

"But then PAMA went rogue?" Ivor chimed in.

Harper nodded glumly. "Yep. Sooner or later, Pams decided that it wanted the humans in Crown Mesa to be more efficient, too. I didn't realize that he was chipping people until it was too late. He was bent on making everything useful."

"But hopefully now you can put a stop to it," Jess said.

"I know you can," Ivor gushed, looking her in the eyes.

"Yeah, let's hope." She brushed her hands together. "Before we go in, let me take care of the security measures. Just in case one of those chipped creeps tries to get in. It's all water-based. PAMA hates water."

"Because water breaks the chips?" Jess asked as she caught a water bucket tossed by Harper.

"Smart cookie. Pour it in that cauldron." Harper pointed at an iron cauldron a meter away from Jess. Jess dumped the contents of the bucket in the cauldron, waiting for something impressive to happen.

"So what's that going to do?" she inquired.

"I get that this system is more complicated than it needs to be," Harper admitted. "I do it for a reason. It's designed to confuse PAMA if he ever reaches this place. Computers are designed to find the most efficient way of solving a problem."

When Harper poured a second bucket of water into the cauldron, it activated some hydraulic mechanisms, and flows of water started to cascade from the ceiling. A steel door on the other end of the room opened partially.

"One more bucket will do the trick," Harper said.

"What a system! A creative way of solving a problem," Ivor sighed, imagining all the complicated redstone wiring involved. "What a builder; what a builder!"

"Don't drool over my floor," Harper replied with a wink. "Just cleaned the place."

"You're a fan of water, aren't you?" Jess looked up at the water dumping from hidden spots in the ceiling, then pooling into reservoirs in the ground.

"You'd be territorial with it, too, if you lived in a desert," Harper replied. "It's scarce to begin with, and once PAMA figured out that water hurts him, he went to town trying to drain it all away. This could very likely be the last water source left in Crown Mesa."

"Oh." Now it made more sense.

"I have to take care of it."

Just then, a large crashing noise echoed from the corridor. It sounded like something heavy and wooden had just fallen over. It was the gate-door! PAMA had breached the barrier!

"PAMA's here!" Jess cried.

"I-I haven't activated all the cauldrons yet," Harper stammered. "Hold them off while I handle it. Buy me some time! And don't get caught. I don't want to lose anyone else."

Jess rushed over to see what they were dealing with. A couple of giant spiders, a coyote, and...two people. She felt sick when she saw who they were.

"Why…?" she moaned.

"Hiding from me is not effective," PAMA said through Petra.

Then he said "You are making this harder than it needs to be," through Lukas.

Petra and Lukas drew their swords. Jess backed up, feeling queasy. She couldn't run away this time, but how was she going to fight them? They had weapons and so did she, but she didn't dare arm herself. It would be impossible to get rid of the threat without hurting her friends. PAMA could sense her hesitation.

"You will not have to harm your friends if you comply," said 'Petra.'

'Lukas' added, "Isn't peace better than fighting? We could all be useful together."

Jess's hands shook. She still couldn't summon the courage to draw her sword.

"Don't listen to him, Jess," Ivor warned harshly. "That isn't Lukas. If you listen to that computer, you'll be mind controlled even before he puts a chip on you."

"Guys, snap out of it!" she begged her friends. "I don't want to fight you."

"If you did not want to fight, you would not have drawn your sword." Petra advanced on Jess, trying to corner her. "Regardless, it is not useful to attempt to fight me. I can read Petra's memories. She knows all your moves."

"Come on, Petra, fight it!" Jess pleaded as Petra made a swing at her with her sword. "This isn't you!"

"Of course it is not Petra. This is PAMA."

Harper managed to get the third bucket of water dumped in the cauldron. It opened another waterfall, directly over where Ivor was being backed into a wall by Lukas. Jess saw it out of the corner of her eye and held her breath. But her hopes were disappointed when Lukas saw it and jumped out of the way before the water touched him. Ivor got soaked instead.

"Enough," Ivor said, coughing water out of his mouth. "Lukas, you have to resist the computer."

"Resistance is not useful," he retorted, making a swing at Ivor, who narrowly dodged it.

A chipped spider jumped off the wall at Jess. She batted it to the side with her sword. Passing through a nearby waterfall, the spider got soaked. Electricity surged through its body and the chip came off. The bewildered creature then scuttled away.

Meanwhile, Lukas threw Ivor aside and started after Jess. He was advancing from one side, Petra came from another, and a wall blocked Jess from the back.

"It's over, Jess," PAMA said through both of her friends. "Give up!"

Jess knew she'd have to think quickly. She glanced at Lukas, then at Petra, thinking about the waterfalls behind them. Her heart pounded in her ears. She had to make a decision, and it was killing her.

Petra was advancing on her fast. Jess reacted impulsively. Before she knew it, she was diving through the air to tackle the redhead. They fell through the waterfall and landed on their backs. The water shorted out the redstone chip. Petra screamed and convulsed as the electricity coursed through her body. The chip unfused from her head and she flopped to the ground, panting and groaning in pain.

"Petra?" Jess asked nervously.

Petra rolled up to a sitting position. Her eyes weren't red anymore, and her voice was back to normal.

"Ohh, pain," Petra moaned. "Thanks for saving me, but...ow."

"Harper! Look out!" Ivor yelled from across the room. Jess whirled around to see Lukas cornering Harper. Harper looked panicked, but apparently still had a plan.

"This is your fight now, guys," she said, and threw the last water bucket to them

"Wait! I'm coming, don't worry!" Jess ran at Harper, but didn't make it. Lukas grabbed the elderly woman by the back of the coat and hauled her away from Jess. Still dangling Harper by the scruff, he jumped on the back of a chipped spider and carried Jess's last hope away.

"No!" Jess yelled.

"You can figure this out; I trust you!" Harper pulled a red flower from her overcoat pocket and threw it at Ivor. "Get the last cauldron. One last thing-give this rose to Harry!"

"Who's Harry?" Jess cried, distraught. But it was too late. Lukas had carried Harper away, and now the rest of them were on their own. Their whole plan had imploded like an airless balloon.

"More coyotes and spiders; look out!" Ivor pointed at the corridor, out of which marched a new tag team of chipped animals.

"Harper said to get the last cauldron." Jess snapped up the bucket that Harper had thrown.

"Then you'd better make it quick."

"There." Jess dumped the bucket into the last cauldron, prompting a large fall of water to dump from the ceiling. It formed a screen between the infested corridor and the safety of the inner lab. Jess just hoped it would hold up. Ivor picked the rose up from the ground and put it in his pocket, then walked Petra to safety.

Jess dashed through the water screen, leaving some angry, disappointed chipped mobs behind. She ducked inside the lab and slammed the doors shut, sticking a plank of wood behind them to barricade it. Then the full realization of what happened swept over her. They were stuck in an underground lab with PAMA's forces right at the door; Lukas was still under PAMA's control; they had just lost their only guide in this hostile world; and they didn't have a plan nor a clue of what they were supposed to do next.

She fell on her knees and wept.

 **To be continued...**


End file.
